Based on Zoe Akins' Pulitzer Prize–winning dramatization of an Edith Wharton story, this "soap opera par excellence" (Leonard Maltin) from 1939 depicts dueling divas Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins vying for the affection of Davis's illegitimate daughter Tina (Jane Bryan), the offspring of a romance with a doomed Civil War soldier (George Brent). As the unloved, unlovable title character, Aunt Charlotte, Bette Davis gives one of her most nuanced performances, aging from wide-eyed lass to gray-haired martinet. Miriam Hopkins provides effective counterbalance as Charlotte's effusive cousin, who raises Tina and holds a lifelong grudge against Charlotte for "stealing" a beau (Tina's father) she had dumped for a rich banker.